Abstract
Tropical montane cloud forests are among the most biodiverse ecosystems on earth and are vulnerable to climate change due to reliance on atmospheric moisture. Epiphytic bryophytes (i.e. mosses, liverworts and hornworts) dominate these ecosystems and drive important ecosystem processes, yet their underlying strategies of resource use and functional structure within the canopy are not well-understood. Community-level functional trait analyses along environmental gradients are valuable for understanding patterns of plant resource use in ecosystems. Along environmental gradients, intraspecific trait variation may obscure or drive patterns of functional structure but has often been overlooked. We examined bryophyte community functional structure among three vertically stratified zones in a Caribbean slope tropical montane cloud forest near Monteverde, Costa Rica. We tested how morphological and water-related traits associated with bryophyte economic spectra differ among vertical zones within cloud forest trees and determined the relative importance of intraspecific variation in shaping this structure. Functional structure differed significantly among zones and is suggestive of an economic trade-off whereby structural investment towards water holding capacity for species in the canopy comes at the cost of photosynthetic capacity, and vice versa on the trunk and base. Patterns of functional structure were mostly due to species turnover rather than intraspecific trait variation, which was supported by clear shifts in community composition among zones and by species with high fidelity to specific zones. We found 171 bryophyte species (50 mosses, 120 liverworts, 1 hornwort), including eight new species for Costa Rica and four new for Central America. Our results suggest that these extremely diverse epiphytic bryophyte communities exhibit acquisition–conservation trade-offs in resource use like that known in vascular plants.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2300-2313 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Functional Ecology |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue number | 9 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 2025 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2025 The Author(s). Functional Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.
Funding
We would like to thank Jack Bindernagel, Keylor Muñoz, Elenter Cubero, Pablo Gutierrez, and Sacha Brewer for field assistance. We extend a special thanks to Cameron Williams and Rikke Naesborg for training in tree climbing. We thank Nathan Earley and Diana Bertuol‐Garcia for helpful discussion of study design and Kurt Trzcinski for thoughtful comments on the manuscript. We are grateful to Catherine La Farge‐England, Anna Luiza Ilkiu‐Borges, Tamas Pocs, and Gregorio Dauphin for help with difficult bryophyte identifications and communications. We thank SINAC and ACAT for providing permission (M‐P‐SINAC‐PNI‐ACAT‐0022‐2023) to conduct research in the area, and the landowner of Finca BARPE for access to the study site. We are grateful to the Botanical Society of America, American Society of Plant Taxonomists, International Association of Bryology, and American Bryological and Lichenological Society for funding provided by graduate student research awards. We also thank Petzel and Fjallraven for the donation of equipment. This project was largely funded by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada. We would like to thank Jack Bindernagel, Keylor Muñoz, Elenter Cubero, Pablo Gutierrez, and Sacha Brewer for field assistance. We extend a special thanks to Cameron Williams and Rikke Naesborg for training in tree climbing. We thank Nathan Earley and Diana Bertuol-Garcia for helpful discussion of study design and Kurt Trzcinski for thoughtful comments on the manuscript. We are grateful to Catherine La Farge-England, Anna Luiza Ilkiu-Borges, Tamas Pocs, and Gregorio Dauphin for help with difficult bryophyte identifications and communications. We thank SINAC and ACAT for providing permission (M-P-SINAC-PNI-ACAT-0022-2023) to conduct research in the area, and the landowner of Finca BARPE for access to the study site. We are grateful to the Botanical Society of America, American Society of Plant Taxonomists, International Association of Bryology, and American Bryological and Lichenological Society for funding provided by graduate student research awards. We also thank Petzel and Fjallraven for the donation of equipment. This project was largely funded by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Botanical Society of America | |
| International Association of Bryologists | |
| American Bryological and Lichenological Society | |
| Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada | |
| American Society of Plant Taxonomists | |
| SINAC | |
| ACAT | M-P-SINAC-PNI-ACAT-0022-2023 |
Keywords
- Monteverde
- bryophytes
- community-weighted mean
- functional structure
- intraspecific trait variation
- tropical montane cloud forests
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
